Six weeks old

Calvin is officially smiling!  He doesn't do it a lot, but when he is happy and you talk to him, he will smile back.  Here are some things he's into:

Likes:
- being held
- laying on the floor kicking his feet when it's his idea.  Don't even think about laying him down if that's not what he wants!
- Moby wrap
- eating
- sleeping
- taking a bath
- naps on his belly


Dislikes:
- carseat
- being awake for too long
- gas bubbles
- swing...the vibrating portion is ok, but don't you dare turn on the swing.

Bathtime with big brother

Just snoozing

Five weeks old

This little cutie is one month old!

Calvin is still trying to figure out how to be awake and happy.  For the most part, he wants to eat or sleep.  He has longer stretches of being awake, but these aren't necessarily happy times.  He starts out happy, but after about 10-15 minutes he's not sure what to do.  This week his schedule has been cat naps all morning, a solid 2+ hour nap in the middle of the day, and then cat naps in the afternoon/evening.  We can't figure out bedtime yet and can't figure out what time/routine works best for Calvin.

Here is what Calvin was up to this week:
- first trip to the library for pajama story time with big brother.  Calvin slept most of the time and Caleb didn't understand why I didn't let Calvin get a stamp on his hand at the end.
- wearing cloth diapers.  Now that he's grown a bit, our diapers fit him.  This kiddo sure goes through a lot of diapers!  I was hoping to get by with washing every three days, but we are needing to every other right now.  If that continues, I might buy a few more to get us to every 2.5-3 days instead.
- spitting up more and more.  Three members of our family have needed to change entire outfits due to spit up in the last couple of days.  Caleb has been spared because "that's too icky for me," so he stays far away!
- sleeping, eating, and more sleeping.

Nap time with Daddy

Four weeks old

Calvin is four weeks old and starting to settle into a nice routine.  He likes to eat, be awake for 20-40 minutes, and then take a nap.  We still haven't established a bed time, as it all depends when his last nap ends, but somewhere between 8:00-9:30 is the goal.  This week at nighttime his routine has been sleep 5 hours, nurse, sleep 3 hours, nurse, sleep 1.5-2 hours and then get in bed with us until we get up for the day.

This past week, Calvin had all sorts of fun adventures.  He went to his check up at the doctor.  He looks great and didn't have to get any shots yet.  He accompanied big brother to ice fishing class.  Calvin wasn't too impressed and slept the whole time.  His biggest event was his first hockey game.  Calvin slept most of the game.

Things we are in love with this time around:
- miracle blanket - there is a reason this is the name!  Calvin was not a fan of the swaddles we used with Caleb, but unswaddled he only sleeps for about 45-90 minutes at night.  We thought it was because he didn't like his arms down, so we tried swaddling with arms out and arms up by his face, but no luck.  In a moment of desperation I remembered we had a "miracle blanket" in our baby gift stash, so we gifted it to ourselves and tried it out.  It's working so well.  Turns out it was his legs that he wanted to move more freely in the night.  This has helped with gas too.
- boppy lounger - big, big fan of this.  So great for laying him in so he feels like he's still being held.  We used the regular boppy like this with Caleb, but Calvin was wiggling his head underneath of it!
- Moby wrap - I thought I loved this with Caleb, but I had no idea how much more I would love it this time.  It makes it so much easier for me to give both kiddos what they need/want.  Calvin can be held securely and I can have my hands free to help Caleb with whatever he needs.  I use it nearly every time we go out and about.  Right now I still carry Calvin inside using his infant carrier and then pop him in the Moby, but as the weather gets nicer, I won't need the infant carrier as much.  Next goal...learning to nurse with him in it.  I've watched a couple youtube videos, but I think Calvin needs to be a bit older before we attempt this.
- Baby Got Colic Youtube video -- Calvin does not have colin, but this white noise playlist is amazing.  It is about 9 minutes long and if we turn it on it's like magic.  Calvin goes to sleep on his own in his bed.  Sometimes we have to play it through again for him to get into a deep sleep, but he just lays there and goes to sleep if it is playing assuming he is dry, fed, and happy when we lay him down.  If he's upset, we hold him while it plays until he's calm and then lay him down.

I'm really trying to get more pictures of him awake, but it doesn't happen a lot.  As you can tell, he would really like to be a tummy sleeper...hopefully he will be an earlier roller so that he can be.  I let him nap on the floor on his tummy when I'm in the room with him, but not for night time sleeping.

Three weeks old

Calvin is three weeks old and is still a very tired little baby.  He sleeps off and on all day and does pretty good at night too (not quite as good as he did the first week).  He gives us anywhere from 2.5-4 hours of sleep between feedings.  For some reason his last night feeding (typically between 4:30-5:30) is hard to get him back to sleep afterwards.  He's super gassy (I think from being swaddled all night) and does a lot of grunting, tooting, and whining.  I usually end up just bringing him to bed with me until Caleb gets up at 7:00.  A lot of mornings Calvin goes back to his cradle then and sleeps until 8:00.  Evenings are going better...that is still the hardest time to get Calvin to sleep, but he doesn't do the hour of screaming every night, just about every other!

I think he had a bit of a growth spurt this past week as there were a couple of days he wanted to eat every 1.5 hours.  He's 9 lbs 6 ozs now!  Three month clothes are huge on him so he wears the same few sleepers and outfits over and over again.  It's fun to see him in Caleb's old clothes.

Two weeks old

Calvin is two weeks old and already it seems like he's always been part of our family.  He still loves to sleep all the time, but is getting a bit pickier about how he likes to sleep.  He doesn't really like being swaddled with his arms in, but if he isn't he wakes himself up a lot in the night, so we are trying a bit looser with the swaddle to not make him quite so mad when we put it on.  His favorite place to sleep is in the swing and the last few nights that's where he has slept for about three hours.  We are working on sleeping in his bed some during the day to help him like that more at night time.  Once he finally gives in, he's still doing ok in the night, but the past few nights it's taken 2-3 hours to finally get him down for the night.  He falls asleep in our arms, but wakes up mad right after we lay him down.  He's gaining weight and was up to 8 lb 5 oz this week (I did let him keep his shirt on, so he's actually a bit less, but I couldn't force him to be cold).

Caleb, Calvin, and I successfully had our first outing.  We dropped off some supplies at Scooter's and went to a brunch at a friends house.  Calvin slept nearly the entire time and Caleb seemed to enjoy being out and about and playing with friends for a while.

Here is what Calvin is into at two weeks old:

Likes:
- being held
- eating
- Moby wrap
- sleeping in his swing and carseat

Dislikes:
- diaper changes
- changing clothes
- anything that might make him cold
- getting into his carseat (he's good once the car is moving and falls asleep quickly, but screams initially for about five minutes)

Indifferent:
- baths -- he didn't mind the actual bath, but he hated being cold when he got out

Caleb is convinced that Calvin needs a blanket on all the time.  

Testing out a bottle

"Calvin, what's wrong?"

Please mom, no pictures

We conquered HyVee!

One week old

I'm hopeful that I will be able to keep up with weekly blog posts for Calvin like we did for Caleb, but I can't promise anything.  Calvin is one week old today and it seems like this week just absolutely flew by.  We are adjusting pretty well to our life as a family of four, but there are moments where we feel completely overwhelmed.  Calvin has been a pretty content baby and is settling into a pretty good daytime routine.  He likes to nurse, stay awake for 20-30 minutes, nap for an hour or so and then repeat.  By the middle of the day he's pretty exhausted and takes a 2-3 hour nap and then starts his cycle again.  He's doing great at night and giving us anywhere from 2.5-5 hours of uninterrupted sleep.  He likes to be held or at least sleep a little upright.  He doesn't seem to care for the swinging motion of the swing (which is good because we think it's broken), but he likes the vibration.  He hates to get his diaper or clothes changed.  He really likes being warm and all snuggled up under a blanket. Caleb helped me give him his first bath and while Calvin wasn't a big fan, he didn't absolutely hate it. He's a big fan of his pacifier, but only the one from the hospital.  I quickly ordered a couple more of that brand in case we lose the ones we have.  The doctor saw him on Friday to check on him for any flu signs and he is starting to gain weight already.  He was 7 lb 11 oz at hospital discharge and was 7 lb 13 oz on Friday at the doctor.  As often as he likes to eat during the day, I bet this will continue.  Keeping track of pictures is going to be a bit trickier this time since we are both taking way more with our phones than our camera this time around.

One of his many, many funny faces

Getting ready for the bath

Big brother likes to help out. 

Lots and lots of kisses 

Welcome to the world Calvin

Calvin Tyler arrived at 2:45 AM on Monday, January 12th.  I was pretty certain labor was approaching throughout the weekend, but just tried to push it out of my mind as I didn't want our boys to share a birthday.  Well, around 1:00 on Sunday (Caleb's birthday), I knew that we would be lucky to not share a birthday.  Contractions were coming pretty regularly and getting painful.  We called our friends Kyle and Anne to come watch Caleb and headed to the hospital.  We checked in around 3:00 and I was only dilated to 1.5 cm and contracting every 3 minutes.  We walked for an hour and I progressed to a 3 so we were admitted.  Around 8:00 that night we had no more progress and were beginning to get discouraged that maybe this wasn't the real deal.  My doctor came at 11:30 that night and broke my water.  She was a bit hesitant as she arrived during a spell of no contractions. Throughout the entire labor I would have three back to back contractions and then eight to ten minutes off.  She went ahead and broke my water and that got things moving.  Contractions became more intense, but manageable.  We kept walking the halls, but around 12:15 I couldn't walk anymore.  We tried to keep moving some and I did everything to avoid laying down in the bed.  By 1:00 contractions were intense and I was in some serious pain.  Fortunately, I was still having the same pattern of three or four contractions and then some time off.  We used the birth ball and all sorts of different positions and I was doing ok until 1:45.  I had been putting off getting checked because I didn't want to get discouraged to hear I hadn't made any progress.  The nurse insisted that I get checked then and much to my surprise, I was a 6!  She called the doctor and told the doctor she'd better head to the hospital now.  Thank goodness she did.  Within ten minutes I was feeling the urge to push and she checked again...I was a ten.  The nurses got everything ready for delivery and I (not so patiently) waited for the doctor in what was the longest 10 minutes of my life.  During this time they called the doctor to check where she was and fortunately, she was close.  She came running in still getting her gear on and I immediately began to push.  We aren't exactly sure how long I pushed, but we both think only four contractions and baby was out.  The doctor told me to reach down and grab my baby and helped to lay him right on my chest.  It was wonderful.  He laid there for about 20 minutes before they took him to clean him up.  He got cleaned up and began nursing shortly after that like a champ.  While this labor was still intense, it was way better than Caleb's!  And not that we plan to have more children, but if we did, I would do natural again.  I felt so much more in control of what was happening and I'm convinced that all the moving and walking we did is what made him come out so quickly/easily.  I'm pretty sure we walked nothing short of seven hours that evening!

I wish I could say our stay in the hospital was as wonderful as the delivery, but unfortunately I came down with influenza Tuesday morning and couldn't hold Calvin.  Caleb was freaked out by the masks and hardly came to see me Tuesday either.  It was hard not being able to be with my boys, but we all made it home Wednesday afternoon and fortunately no one else has gotten sick.